The Ranger (Highland Guard #3)

The Ranger (Highland Guard #3)
Monica McCarty



FOREWORD

The Year of Our Lord thirteen hundred and seven. The tide has turned, but Robert the Bruce is still far from being able to claim victory in his quest to claim the Scottish throne.

With England in turmoil following the death of his greatest foe, King Edward I of England, Bruce turns to vanquishing the enemies within. Many of his own countrymen still oppose him, foremost among them the Comyns, the MacDowells, the Earl of Ross, and the MacDougalls.

With the help of his secret band of elite warriors known as the Highland Guard, Bruce continues his revolutionary strategy of “pirate” warfare, cutting a swath of destruction across the lands of his enemies that will be remembered for generations.

He subdues the MacDowells in Galloway before starting the march north into the Highlands. After securing temporary truces with Ross and the MacDougalls, Bruce attacks the Comyns at Inverlochy, Urquhart, Inverness, and Nairn.

But just when victory seems to be in his grasp, Bruce is struck with a strange sickness, leaving the would-be king hovering near death. The enemy becomes cold and hunger, as his men are forced to wait out the winter in uncertainty.

The year before, when all seemed lost, and Bruce was forced to flee from his kingdom a fugitive, he turned to the warriors of the Highland Guard to help him survive. Now, to defeat the powerful nobles who stand in his way, he will need them more than ever.

Prologue

St. John’s Church, Ayr, Scotland, April 20, 1307

Arthur Campbell wasn’t there—or at least he wasn’t supposed to be. He’d told King Robert Bruce about the silver changing hands at the church tonight on its way north to the English garrison at Bothwell Castle. His part of the mission was over.

Bruce’s men were concealed in the trees not fifty yards away, waiting for the riders to appear. Arthur didn’t need to be here. In fact, he shouldn’t be here. Protecting his identity was too important. After more than two years of pretending to be a loyal knight to King Edward, he’d invested too much to risk it on a “bad feeling.” It wasn’t just explaining himself to the English that he had to worry about. If King Robert’s men discovered him, they would think he was exactly what he appeared to be: the enemy.

Only a handful of men knew Arthur’s true allegiance. His life depended on it.

Yet here he was, hiding in the shadows of the tree-shrouded hillside behind the church, because he couldn’t shake the twinge of foreboding that something was going to go wrong. He’d spent too many years relying on those twinges to start ignoring them now.

The clang of the church bell shattered the tomb of darkness. Compline. The night prayer. It was time.

He held perfectly still, keeping his senses tuned for any sign of approaching riders. From his initial scouting of the area, he knew that Bruce’s men were positioned in the trees along the road approaching the church. It gave them a good view of anyone arriving, but left them far enough away to be able to make a quick escape in the event the occupants of the church—which was serving as a makeshift hospital for English soldiers—were alerted by the attack.

Admittedly, St. John’s wasn’t the ideal place to stage an attack. If the wounded English soldiers inside weren’t enough of a threat, the garrison of soldiers stationed not a half-mile away at Ayr Castle should give Bruce’s men pause.

But they had to operate with the intelligence they had. Arthur had learned that the silver would change hands tonight at the church, but not by which road it would leave. With at least four possible routes out of the city to Bothwell, they couldn’t be certain which one the riders would take.

In this case the reward was worth the risk. The silver—perhaps as much as fifty pounds—intended to pay the English garrison at Bothwell Castle could feed Bruce’s four hundred warriors hiding in the forests of Galloway for months.

Moreover, capturing the silver wouldn’t just be a boon to Bruce, it would also hurt the English—which was exactly what these surprise attacks were calculated to do. Quick, fierce attacks to keep the enemy unsettled, interfere with communication, take away the advantage of superior numbers, weaponry, and armor, and most of all, to instill fear in their hearts. In other words, they would fight the way he’d always fought: like a Highlander.

And it was working. The English cowards didn’t like to travel in small groups without an army to protect them, but Bruce and his men had been giving them so much trouble, the enemy had been forced to use furtive tactics in attempting to sneak the silver through by using a few couriers and priests.

Suddenly, Arthur stilled. Though there hadn’t been a sound, he sensed someone approaching. His gaze shot to the road, scanning back and forth in the darkness. Nothing. No sign of riders approaching. But the hairs at the back of his neck were standing on edge, and every instinct warned him otherwise.

Then he heard it. The soft but unmistakable crackle of leaves crushed underfoot, coming from behind him.

Behind.

He swore. The couriers were arriving via the path from the beach, not the road from the village. Bruce’s men would see them, but the attack would be much closer to the church than they wanted. They’d been trained to expect the unexpected, but this was going to be close ... very close.

He hoped to hell the priest didn’t decide to come out and investigate. The last thing he wanted was a dead churchman on his soul—it was black enough already.